TIAAReviews of tiaa.org

Like many of the reviews to follow getting money transferred out of TIAA is almost impossible. Filing a complaint with the SEC is a possible solution, or perhaps a class action lawsuit.

Convert TIAA-IRA to TIAA Roth-IRA it tooks a month to process and keep getting wrong informations. Now I decide to Xfer completely my TIAA-IRA to other investment firm ... it took forever to process and never notified me... and when I call the agent just full of BS... not resolve any issues. I would rate as Zero star if I could. Sometime I thought they hired all the elementary school to handle financial service...

I needed to make some allocation changes and had some questions. Contacted my rep in MI (they closed the Southfield office and didn’t tell customers). Was told to call the 800 number. Called the 800 number and was told to call my rep with my questions. The service is horrible. Used to be a good company. And we aren’t talking pennies for the value of the account,

I will mention just one incident which shows how unethical (and perhaps illegal) their operating practices are. Specifically, after messing up a phone transaction regarding movement of funds from my checking account into my retirement account so that it did not go through they admitted they owed me approximately $250 and said "they would make me whole". How did they do this? Rather than paying out-of-pocket which was what I expected they had the audacity to take the money out of my checking account and moved it into my retirement account!! They did not tell me they were going to do this or ask me if they could access my checking account. This must be illegal!! Overall, the mystique of Tiaa being above the fray because their clients are university professors and hospital administrators is gone: since going for profit, they have sunk to unheard of levels of immorality and will do anything to get more commissions from clients even if it hurts the clients in the process. The recent lawsuit reported in the NY Times in which they had to pay approximately 300 million dollars to clients for cheating them out of money and not acting in their best financial interest is testament to all of this. Tiaa, shame on you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wasn't able to check my account for 2023, and I just checked and it is showing my account balance went to 0.00 in one day. How can this be possible? I am still confused.

Prior to April, 2023, TIAA was depositing 5 regular required minimum distribution payments into my bank account at the beginning of each month. In mid-March, after filing my taxes for tax year 2022, I submitted a request to increase withholding on my 3 taxable IRA accounts. This was done using a W-4R web form on the TIAA website. After that, on April 2, I noticed that one of my 5 direct deposits was not made. I had to call them and request that they manually deposit the missing payment. This deposit was finally completed on 4/14/23. Just to check that everything was back on track, I logged into the portal after the missing payment was deposited and noticed that the banking information for all three of my taxable IRA accounts had been changed to a non-existent bogus account, so I called and spent about an hour on the phone with a CSR trying to get the problem fixed. I was assured that a case was opened and a special representative would handle getting this all resolved. About a week later, I received an email giving me the name and contact info for this case. I called the analyst and he told me that, rather than being asked to resolve all of the banking deposit problems, he was only responsible for resolving one of the three accounts in error. He told me that he would work to resolve that one account and put in a request for another case to resolve the other two. None of that ever happened. I logged into my account again on 4/28/23. I noticed that the bank deposit information was still missing for all three IRA accounts and there was no way for me to fix it because the accounts had been completely removed from the retirement distributions list. So, I called in AGAIN and spoke with a Chauncy who supposedly verified that the 5/1/23 payments would be made for all 5 accounts and that the corrections that would allow me to see and manage distribution deposits for the accounts using the web portal were still underway. He told me he couldn't give me a date when things would be back to normal so if I wanted to change anything right now, I would need to call in. I was assured that, even though the banking information was not showing up on the web portal, that it was correct on the back end. Well, the payments for May were even more screwed up. On May 2, the only payments deposited in my account were for the two non-taxable Roth accounts. On 5/3/23, I called in AGAIN and spoke with Larry this time about not receiving the three taxable payments. I spent 45 minutes on and off hold and again got assurance the payments would be deposited in the next two days. Nope! On 5/9/23, I called TIAA again. This time I spoke to Ben. Went over the whole situation again and told him I still had not received the deposits or restoration of the distribution bank routing information for the 3 taxable accounts. He offered to pay me a one-time lump sum distribution instead of monthly payments. I think this was his way of 'fixing' this screwup. I emphatically told him that I didn't not want a lump sum but instead want the regular monthly payments just like what had been done prior to April, 2023. He told me he put in a work order to have the payments sent within 3 business days. At that point, I requested to speak to a manager about this. Ben told me his manager was in a meeting and other managers are unavailable. Ben told me his manager, Michael, would call back within 2 business days. Michael did actually call back, but despite assurances he (Michael) would ensure the problems would get resolved, nothing has changed and now he is not calling me back. One other interesting thing I noticed yesterday is that TIAA withdrew money from all 5 accounts on 5/1/23 but only deposited the withdrawn amounts from the two Roth accounts. The money withdrawn from the three taxable IRA accounts went who knows where??? I did not get those funds until 5/11 so my money was somewhere else for 10 days! Anyway, the problems are still not resolved after over 2 months and I don't know where to turn to get anyone there to help!

I have been having an absolutely atrocious time trying to rollover funds from my TIAA 401k to a new account. When I initially completed the paper work, I supplied wiring information because it did not specify if it was for mail or wiring. Rather than contacting me to verify the address, TIAA mailed a check to the wiring address which obviously didn't work. After repeatedly contacting them for updates, they told me the check had been returned and that I would have to start the rollover process from scratch once the funds were readded to my account. I wait another week, no funds are returned. I contact them again and am provided with completely different information. I am told that the funds would never be automatically reapplied, and that I should just provide the correct mailing information (WHICH I HAD TRIED TO DO PREVIOUSLY AND WAS DENIED). Following this, I asked for an email address so that I could keep a log of this information. The customer service rep refused to do so, claiming that they had no emails to contact.

The worst bank we have ever experienced in a lifetime of dealing with banks around the world. Without notice or warning, they appropriated both our balances for inactivity and now cannot account for them. At first we operated on the hunch it was identity theft but after never being given a manager to account to us we discovered the money was supposedly given to the state, but we promptly confirmed with the state this was never done. We have called their one customer-service number repeatedly to no avail, written many times to Support for help, but all we get are mailed promises "we will reply to you shortly" which never happens. Even the $20m-a-year CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett ghosts us while parading as a moral influencer talking about "Character" as her top priority. Even the BBB refuses to accredit this disreputable institution. TIAA does not follow norms/bank protocol. Stay away. They lie routinely. Customer service is a waste of time. They send you in circles. With the worst reviews out there, TIAA is shameless. To think they do this to teachers!